By Stephen Green. (First Published in Christian Voice February 2007)
Luke 17:11 And it came to pass, as he went to Jerusalem, that he passed through the midst of
Samaria
and
Galilee
.
12 And as he entered into a certain village, there met him ten men that were lepers, which stood afar off:
13 And they lifted up their voices, and said, Jesus, Master, have mercy on us.
14 And when he saw them, he said unto them, Go shew yourselves unto the priests. And it came to pass, that, as they went, they were cleansed.
15 And one of them, when he saw that he was healed, turned back, and with a loud voice glorified God,
16 And fell down on his face at his feet, giving him thanks: and he was a Samaritan.
17 And Jesus answering said, Were there not ten cleansed? but where are the nine?
18 There are not found that returned to give glory to God, save this stranger.
19 And he said unto him, Arise, go thy way: thy faith hath made thee whole.
This is the definitive word in the Bible on the subject of ingratitude. It is only Luke who records this miracle. Out of ten men healed of leprosy, only one came back with a word of thanks. Even more poignantly, the nine who did not bother were the nine from
Galilee
. Given their Jewish ancestry, they acted as representatives of all those to whom much has been given. Much would be expected of them in return, but they took their blessing for granted. By way of contrast, the one foreigner was more conscious of what he had been delivered from, in a spiritual sense as well as medically.
It occurs to me to look at it from their point of view. Leprosy is a spirit-crushing contagious disease which wrecks the nerve endings. Those affected end up numb. Because they have no feeling in their hands and feet, they cannot feel cold or heat, and so they end up damaging their toes and especially their fingers. In Bible times leprosy was common, and colonies were established where sufferers could live in some degree of normality. There was one on the northern side of this village into which the Lord was about to enter, as he made His way to
Jerusalem
.
Possibly the lepers had grown comfortable in the colony, had become what we today call institutionalised, so they did not recognise the enormity of what had been done for them. On the other hand, perhaps they were so delighted they wanted to rush straight off in their joy to the priest to begin the sacrificial rituals and seven days quarantine specified in Leviticus 14. It would be easy to forget the niceties in such a case. They could always come later and thank the man they met.
But such excuses are not good enough for the Lord Jesus. Although we always think of Him as forgiving and understanding, He is less than accommodating in the face of the lepers' lack of social skills. They had been healed. Even though He tells them to attend to their ceremonial duties, He has in His mind to see if their first thought would instead be to their brother who had done them such a kindness. They failed the test.
In fact, it was not so much gratitude the Lord wanted, as recognition of the work of Almighty God, and that the men should give God the glory He deserved. By doing that, the Samaritan gained an additional blessing. He was not just cleansed of his leprosy but made completely whole. The Jews, rather like Job's comforters, saw leprosy as a curse for previous sin, so the Lord took the opportunity to pronounce a greater deliverance on the one who came back. He drew particular attention to the fact that it was someone outside the Jewish community who was the only one to see God so clearly in what had been done for him. And that was despite the others acknowledging Him as Saviour and Master at the start.
That always seems to be the way. Anyone who has undertaken missions both in the
UK
and overseas will tell of many more converts in countries where paganism is the demotic (yes, and demonic) religion. Those who have been enslaved by Animism, for example, are eager to hear the Gospel of Jesus Christ. In the
UK
, with our massive Christian heritage, too many people don't think they need forgiveness and new life. It is as if they are sheltering under the faith of their ancestors. They are comfortable and cannot see their need of a Saviour. They know all about Christianity. Its tokens are all about them. It isn't new, or challenging. That is very similar to the attitude I think I see in the Jewish lepers.
As I was writing this, only a day or so earlier a row blew up in the Anglican church in
Turkey
. The ordination of a Turkish-born evangelist upset the local British expatriate church. The Bishop in
Europe
suspended a senior minister who opposed the ordination of the convert. In an astonishing comment, one ex-pat member of the church council said:
'We are not here to convert anyone, but to support what exists. If anyone wants to engage in missionary work in
Turkey
they are going to have to do it over our dead bodies. I don't want to get shot for going to church.' Agreed, two Turkish Protestants are currently on trial for insulting 'Turkishness' and Islam, but it is converts who are most at risk, not ex-pats. The 'pull up the draw-bridge, we're safe inside' approach is rather different from the risk-taking evangelical attitude of the early church. But it sums it all up. It is the Christian equivalent of 'We have Abraham for our father. We're all right. These foreigners are beneath our notice.' (Luke 3:8)
When I first started writing about these words from Luke 17, it was the similarities with our national ingratitude which struck me. Hence the title. Nationally, corporately, we have been even more blessed by God's miracles in answer to prayer than the lepers. Matthew Henry makes the witty comment that with the lepers, Christ did not merely heal an individual with a word, He healed a whole hospital. In our case, in two world wars as well as countless times before, He saved a whole nation and its dependencies. The prayer of the lepers was corporate. So was ours, all through times of national crisis.
Like the lepers, we started well. They were called to take a step of faith, starting off on their journey to show themselves to the priests before as yet any had been healed. This is reminiscent of the priests themselves having to step right into the flooding
Jordan
with the Ark of the Covenant before the waters were to be stopped. Their obedience saved them.
This
United Kingdom
too, even under flawed leadership, declared war in 1939, and set out on expeditions, after corporate prayer, in faith that God would deliver us. We did it without any indication of the miracles and the twists and turns of apparent good fortune that were to come. I do not have space to go into them all - many are documented in the uplifting booklet we sell, 'We have a Guardian'. The deliverance came. However, in all three cases, God will not do it all. We have to do something ourselves, but then we see that God had already prepared a miracle. I hope it is not irreverent to draw an analogy with a servo system. We have to put in an effort, but it is a small effort compared with the amazing results.
I believe God likes those who take that step of faith, trusting in His promises, obedient to His word or purpose. He sends a miracle of deliverance today just as nearly two thousand years earlier, and a thousand years before that.
But how it grieves Him when we don't return Him the thanks due and give Him the glory. Just years after the end of the Second World War and God, our great Guardian, was forgotten in the celebration of our national achievements in the 1951 Festival of Britain
Just as in the case of the lepers, we had an opportunity after the war to serve God with all our national heart. Instead, just like
Israel
before us, we convinced ourselves we had done it all in our own strength (see Deut
8:17
and Amos
6:13
). The Almighty One became irrelevant, materialism ruled here almost as strongly as in the
Soviet Union
, and Secular Humanism became our god instead.
God did not revoke our miracle, but I believe we forwent a blessing and stored up trouble for later. Scripture shows that national salvation is short-lived (and to that massive subject I must at some time return). Sixty years after we celebrated deliverance from what was described as 'the Nazi jackboot,' we are subservient to a European power just as implacable. Incredibly, British people rush to be bureaucrats and officials in the Administration of this foreign god. It is a very good job that Hitler never conquered
Britain
. There would have been no shortage of home-grown gauleiters to serve him, and they would have been clamping down as hard on any resistance movements then as their successors do on anyone selling fruit and veg in pounds and ounces today.
But I digress. The ingratitude is there, almost as a fact of fallen human nature. But it also remains that blessed is the one - the individual, the family, the church, the prayer group, the business or the nation - who returns to give gratitude and glory to God. Matthew Henry says, in his concluding sentence on this passage: 'Note, temporal mercies are then doubled and sweetened to us when they are fetched in by the prayers of faith, and returned by the praises of faith.'
We need to see God in His miracles and never fail to give Him thanks and praise for every blessing.
